


But We're Still Growing

by timeespaceandpixiedust



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:08:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24508927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timeespaceandpixiedust/pseuds/timeespaceandpixiedust
Summary: That’s what sets Catra on edge, what sends shivers down her spine, an uneven beating in her heart. This is supposed to be the part where things are easy. But she’s never known easy. She didn’t know what it meant not to fight. She hadn’t had dreams without a backdrop of warzones in so long.--The war is over. Everything else is supposed to fall into place. A series of moments analyzing what it means for something to be effortless and the work it takes to get there.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 166





	But We're Still Growing

**Author's Note:**

> I wish I could say this is something more, but it's just a one-shot post finale fic. I'm working on a couple of larger projects, though actually finishing anything these days has been a struggle. So here's my little contribution in the meantime. Hope you enjoy :)

It had taken weeks, days and nights stumbling past in a haze, but Adora had finally stopped fighting off demons in her sleep. 

There were a handful of nights where she never slept at all. Some where Catra woke halfway through to find her crying out in her sleep. A couple where she never woke but not once rested.

The days stumble past, the adrenaline fades, the smoke clears. Adora sleeps.

There’s a peace to it, one that Catra cannot help but envy. She has slept in this bed every night since Horde Prime was defeated. Or at least, she’d tried.

There were ribbons of light that fell through the curtain, that damned rune stone never fading. There’s nothing to hear but Adora’s heavy breathing, her occasional mumble. There is stillness, quiet.

That’s what sets her on edge, what sends shivers down her spine, an uneven beating in her heart. This is supposed to be the part where things are easy. But she’s never known  _ easy _ . She didn’t know what it meant not to fight. She hadn’t had dreams without a backdrop of warzones in so long. 

It’s too bright. None of the light is red. There is no blinking of security cameras, no glowing green eyes. Instead, it is white light, pure and bright and finding its way through even the thickest of curtains, no matter how tightly Catra tries and pulls them. There are edges—cracks—and it slips right in, finds a home cast across the plush, white carpet like it was always meant to live there. 

It is too quiet. How does someone sleep without the hissing of pipes, in the absence of the hum of engines? Her ears were attuned to listen. Listen for alarms, for warning signs. Maybe if you’re paying attention, you can discover the threat before it stalks you out. An argument in the night guarantees for a fight ready to be fought in the morning. She’d need to rise for the day with claws bared, fists clenched tight. Snap first before you can be the one on the receiving end. A quick mouth, fast hands, steady hit. Don’t fear what comes next. Just hit first. Strike true. 

It’s not that Adora is the only one with nightmares. It’s that she’s the only one who still tries to fight them off.

Adora awakens in the night with flailing limbs, with a scream building at her lips, working its way out in grunts and gasps. There is no hiding what haunts her. There is no denying what brings forth her terror. Catra wraps herself against Adora—a head on her chest, hands grasping around her back—tight and unrelenting. 

It’s not like she knows what to say. There isn’t really a conversation to be had. 

“I’m sorry.” “It’s okay now.” “I know how you feel.” 

Words are worth little more than nothing, and she wastes no such time deceiving herself otherwise. Words could not make up for the past. Words do not alleviate guilt. She does not deserve to relent such a heavy weight. This is hers to bear. These choices had their consequences, and she was to live with them. Because that was what she had chosen—to live with her regrets instead of dying in her stubborn resolve. 

She flops onto her back. Stares up at the dangling lights overhead. Delicate glass baubles, the luxury of unnecessity, of an existence just for the sake of prettiness. 

Her heart is trapped within her chest, a pounding against her ribs that never feels right. The rhythm is unsteady, broken and fractured. Too fast and then too slow. Her breaths are shallow, oxygen that does not fully dwell within her lungs, cannot reach down deep to open and release. 

Fists twisting in the sheets. Claws digging, grasping. 

She doesn’t know how to do this. How to not be okay. How to face that truth while she also embraces her guilt, accepts her mistakes. 

A glimpse of the scars on Adora’s back and her blood turns to stone.

A mention of Glimmer’s mother and her guts twist themselves into chains. 

A hand reaching towards her. A kiss on her cheek, on the back of her shoulder, on her lips, and suddenly she can fly. She shakes off the weight of iniquity, released from the cement that has hardened on her back, filled the spaces between her ribs.

There’s too much. Too much to feel, to process, to accept and forgive. Never-ending guilt to work through and to find herself deserving of anything at all by the end. A hundred mistakes that she has built a fortress out of. Indestructible, impenetrable—there are metal bars, concrete floors, cinder block walls. She encased herself in a prison and had no intention of ever stepping out. A life sentence, no early release on good behavior.

But now she’s here. Now it’s over. They won and it was together. Her victory did not mean watching Adora’s defeat any longer. Finally, winning had felt worth it. Finally, it felt how it should.

If only it would last.

//

There was always some princess meeting or another during the days. 

A handful of hours were devoured by bureaucracy. Rebuilding, regrowing, healing a community. What does it mean and how is it done? Catra sits in on these meetings, placed beside Adora like she had a reservation at this table, like she wanted one. They talk about helping and serving demolished villages, and Catra decides there could be room for her here after all. 

Breakfasts are grand buffets. Fluffy, yellow eggs and thick slices of French Toast. Thick globs of syrup dripping off the prongs of a fork. A bowl of vanilla yogurt topped with colorful berries, blues and reds and pinks. Everything here is drenched in color, in flavor. Even the hot chocolate has pink marshmallows in a bowl next to it for topping. No one hopes for gray over brown. No one hopes for different shades of neutral to be more than what they had always been.

It’s startling. Catra nibbles on a single slice of bacon, stirs in honey to rich, vanilla yogurt. She sits amongst people who should hate her but accept her presence, make a space for her at an overcrowded table. 

The little one is obnoxious. She shouts too much, discreetly populates ice in people’s cups of hot tea when they aren’t looking, laughs at any and every joke. It grates on Catra’s nerves. 

Mermista doesn’t like Catra. She doesn’t pretend otherwise. Catra leans into it for exactly what it is, grateful for the ease of hatred. They throw sarcastic cracks at each other, roll their eyes. Pretend there is nothing between them but complete and utter animosity. It’s the first time Catra feels like someone here can really speak her language. It becomes its own reliable form of a friendship. 

Adora’s there. She’s there in the mornings, at the meetings, wandering the grounds while bathed in the afternoon sunlight, tucked beside Catra in bed. She is actively present, attuned. A hundred different reasons as to why Catra should stay, one as to why she actually does. 

A sense of belonging had lacked for as long as she could remember, instilled with a sense of loneliness, undeniable isolation for who she was and how little she mattered. This is the first time that she finds herself amongst a community. It is the first time she wishes to belong and senses a hum of potential. 

The sun comes up too soon here. So much light, a brightness that consumed an entire land.

Catra walks in the gardens. She stares at the daisies. She tries not to waste her time on reflection—on what it means to be broken and find a place that allows her to heal, accepts her pieces for what they are. She picks a flower, clenches the petals in her fist and pushes that past to where it belongs.

//

Easy was not really how Catra knew life to be. She finds ease in pieces of her life, bright and new as it was. There was a simplicity to routines, an undeniable desire to revel in a world that had been born new. 

At times, her relationship with Adora was the most natural part of all. Years of holding back, pushing down, and now Catra could launch forward. There was nothing to stop her from springing free into all of the potential that surrounded them both. 

But of course, that could be hard too. It’s hard to acknowledge truths and admit them aloud. It is almost impossible to face her realities at all. The flashes of what she has done contest with all that has been done to her. The active versus the passive. The destruction versus the smothering. “Excuses aren’t what matter,” Perfuma tells her on a day when the rain is soft and sweet-smelling. “Acknowledging what has caused you harm, what drove you to your choices, is how you begin to heal.”

There are a few dozen roses on the table, Perfuma creates each flower individually and wraps them together in a bouquet. “What if I only made my choices because I was...bad?” Evil, malicious, cruel. The words she could not retract. The scratches etched into Adora’s back. The grave where Glimmer’s mother was remembered because she had no body left to be buried. “Why do I deserve redemption?” 

It’s the sort of question she could never ask Adora. Not because she feared her answer, but because she knew it. Adora was too good. Too kind. She loved Catra. She would overlook the bad parts to allow her to value the good.

Perfuma creates a dark red rose, thorns along its stem. “Nothing is quite so simple, Catra.” She waves her hand again, takes away the thorns, removes its edge for harm. The flower is tucked behind Catra’s ear. Instinct itches in her fingers to reach up and swipe it away. She holds it back and denies the urge. “You know you’re good, just like I do.” 

Catra accepts Perufma’s offering of friendship, allows it to rest snuggly against her skull where the hair is still too short. But is she good enough—enough to eliminate the harm she has done, enough to maintain a place in this world, enough to be forgiven of the sins she committed against them time and time again?

The smile reaches all the way to Perfuma’s eyes, half crescent moons closed as her lips stretch wide. “People hurt you. You hurt people.” A hand on her shoulder, a smile that is faded but still there. “Cycles can end, though. Not all circles have to be complete.”

“I don’t speak metaphors, Flower Power,” she mumbles, fingers grazing across petals.

A full bouquet of bright orange roses is offered out to her. “I’m glad you’re here, Catra.” The words are so easy, so simple, but Catra does not quite know how to process them. She hasn’t really grasped what to do with truths. “Now, which ones do you think Scropia would like best?”

//

This time when Catra wakes up, the space beside her is empty.

It’s only been a handful of weeks, and she’s forgotten what that is like. Her hand is reaching out, expecting to find warmth, safety, but finds only cool sheets.

She sits up, eyes bleary with sleep. The room is empty but the curtain cracked.

The blanket is clenched in her fist, thrown over her shoulder, as she opens the door to the balcony. 

So bright in the middle of the night. Always too bright.

Except Adora is sitting in that light, knees to her chest as she looks out. Her hair is loose, messy from fitful sleep. Her eyes are dry but fixed ahead on nothing, a mind completely lost in thought, a million questions rushing past. 

“Hey, Adora.” The words are almost a joke between them now, but the familiarity is a reassurance all its own. So much has changed, but maybe something can stay the same, maybe not everything it took for them to get here had to be bad. 

The wind is rustling trees, skimming over the water. Clouds overhead suggest a storm is coming. It’s getting closer to summer every day, but a chill still runs through Catra’s system. She pulls the blanket from her shoulder and drapes it over Adora. 

That’s what gets Adora to move, to look. The smile she offers is small and not really a smile at all. And that’s the thing, isn’t it? Smiles aren’t meant to exist for the sake of covering truths. 

Without invitation, Catra settles beside her, plants her head right on Adora’s shoulder and breathes deep. The air is heavy with promised rainfall. In another lifetime, Catra’s hair would be even more frizzed and out of control than usual. In this one, she has shorn edges close-cropped enough that there is no way for them to expand at all, too short to hold any amount of moisture. 

“Do you think this will ever get any easier?” Adora asks. Her voice is frail, fractured around her words. 

There is no easy answer. Catra doesn’t know what she’s referencing. She doesn’t see after a lifetime of fighting wars—fighting each other—how anything could ever be easy. So much suffering. “Not really.” 

The harshness of her voice is something that seems to make Adora smile as opposed to flinch away. Once in a while she knew how to tell the truth. “I don’t know how to do something besides prepare for battle.”

Training rooms, workout routines, studies on tactics—those were the makings of their childhood. All set in the backdrop of a stolen kingdom, ruled by those hungry for power. “It’s all we’ve ever done, I guess.” Survival mode was how they lived. What did they do now—with the adrenaline fading, the fight or flight cut loose? How did they survive when it was no longer their sole purpose?

Adora presses her face into Catra’s hair, breathes her in like it is a memory to commit. “There are only two things I’ve always done,” she says as she comes back to herself. An arm around Catra’s shoulders, a loosening of the tension in her back. “Fight like the world depended on it.” Which it did, as fucked up as that was. “And love you.”

The words get stuck in Catra’s throat, a tight ball of emotion trapped within. An understanding of always, forevers, how they had nothing but each other, and it was what kept their world upright for so many years. But Adora perpetually has her sense of justice, her moral compass. “You’d think you could have told me sooner,” Catra attempts a joke, shies away from the vulnerability gusting around them. Her hair stands on end, electricity was charging in the air. 

“Catra…”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers now. She uses those words like a muscle. “That wasn’t fair.”

Always so much to admit, so many truths to dredge to the surface. 

The lightning strike is off in the distance, it lights the sky, covers the earth. Thunder does not follow for several seconds. 

“I guess, sometimes I don’t...understand.” Adora waits. She does not rush to fill in the blank, resolves herself from concocting solutions. “How.”

The word sits there. Not quite between them, but just in front, takes up their vision even as electricity creates a show in the clouds just behind it. 

“How what?” 

And now is the time that assumptions would do just fine, but Adora is going to make her say it. Perfuma would say that this is part of healing, admitting truths and sitting amongst the veracity. “How you love me.”

“Catra.” This time her name is splintered. Sadness tinges the edges, grief grasps it in the middle. The thunder rolls forward, and it takes up residence in Catra’s spine. 

“Forget it.” Honesty wasn’t her thing. Why change that now? “This was never about me.”

A palm curls against her face; Catra closes her eyes and presses her cheek closer despite better judgment. Promises are resting in this gesture alone. For years a hand to her face and Catra would have flinched. Now she revels, absorbs the sensation into her and clings to it tightly.

The rain is quiet, easy to miss between the wind and the thunder. But the drops hit the pool of water, ripples tripping around them. “There’s a million reasons I love you.”

It doesn’t make sense, but then there is white lightning flashing overhead, a glowing rune stone that never rests, a forest of life that had burst forth in the matter of a single moment. How many things really do?

They sit like that until morning. A revolving door of silence and sounds and conversation. Somewhere along the way, Catra murmurs back an I love you too. At some point, she stops being afraid to admit it.

//

Movie night. It holds a different meaning than it once did in the Horde.

Movie nights then were a collection of Entrapta’s recordings as she took notes of all the things that had gone wrong, and the few which had gone right, for each of her experiments. 

Now they sit on a plush, light pink couch. The screen is not cracked, there is no whirring of the video player in the background.

This is just a movie. People acting like other people, saying lines written by someone else and delivering them with emotion. It’s a story, and it takes a while for Catra to grasp that it was nothing else. Scorpia keeps whispering next to her. It's distracting, but she’s a little overwhelmed anyway. Catra answers; it’s their first true conversation since the one that had sent Scorpia away. 

Entrapta sits on the other side of her when Adora gets up for more food. Her hair is everywhere, it always is. There’s a singular scene featuring a display of tech being hacked, and she just shakes her head before turning to the two of them to explain how unbelievably inaccurate it is. 

Sometimes there is nothing more to a scene besides the fact that it is funny. At one point, Catra is holding her gut from laughing so hard. Scorpia attempts to wipe a tear away with her claws and Entrapta turns her head to the side in question before an “Oh!” a moment too late and she joins in. 

The laughter lasts longer than any scene could probably expect, but for the first time, Catra feels like she actually fits right in the middle of the super best friend trio.

//

Sparkles and Rainbow never stop being  _ a lot _ . At some point, Catra thinks she must have just grown some amount of immunity to them both. They’re always happy to the point of infuriation.

Bow sits next to her in their many council meetings. He develops a habit of leaning over and whispering in her ear or scribbling a note meant just for her eyes. Even his jokes are never mean spirited. She finds that they manage to be funny anyway. She likes to steal his notepad and scribble vulgar words in the margins to make him panic midmeeting. 

Then there’s Glimmer. She’s always in seven different places at once, literally. She pops in and out of rooms and conversations like it’s normal. Her sprinkly sound of windchimes could almost haunt Catra at night. And one time, one damn time, she mentions wishing she was in the kitchen for more coffee at eight in the damn morning (who even has a meeting at that time?), and Glimmer just grabs her hand and takes them there. 

Catra doesn’t barf, but god is it close. 

They talk more than Catra would expect. For all of Glimmer’s teleporting and rushing around, she’s not afraid to settle herself into quiet moments. 

On days when it’s just Catra walking the gardens, Glimmer will appear beside her. Sometimes they talk—about Adora, about Bright Moon, about community projects, about mistakes. Other times it’s silence without loneliness. There’s a camaraderie that sits between them now, though Catra may hate to admit it. A small piece of comfort she had clung to like a lifeline aboard that spaceship. Just the two of them with backs to a wall. Whatever this was between them, Catra begrudgingly admitted maybe friendship was the closest word to accuracy, it had started in silent reassurance. 

It’s good to know it can still exist.

//

“Surprise!” 

Two months later and Catra flips a light switch to find every person she knows crowded behind furniture and jumping out, hands in the air and smiles on their faces.

She shrieks, takes a second to stop searching for hiding places and exits. This was a good thing. Filled only with the people she knew, liked even. There’s a banner hanging from the ceiling. Pastel streams of tissue paper draping overhead. 

“What the fuck is this?” she asks, arms crossing over her chest because she thinks she knows. She’s pretty sure she’s deduced exactly what this is, and it may just be enough to reduce her to tears. 

“It’s a party!” Adora shouts from the back of the room, finger raised like she’s made some colossal discovery.

“I know what a party is, idiot,” Catra grumbles without bite.

Scorpia catches her first, scoops her up in a tight hug. “It’s your birthday party, of course!” 

Those had never been a thing. The Horde didn’t do birthdays. Hell, they didn’t even do parties. And they definitely didn’t do surprises. At least, not any of the kind you wanted.

A bit of squirming and Scorpia puts her down. Adora’s at her side, a hand on her back. “It’s a surprise party!” she’s beaming, high on excitement and probably a little bit of sugar if the frosting in the corner of her mouth was any indicator. “Aren’t they  _ fun _ ?” 

Catra had been ready to fight it off, to be surly and bitter and defend against any emotions that may attack against her. There’s a surrender at the joy in Adora’s voice, a concession at the smile on her face. “Glimmer and Bow helped me!”

A cheesy wave, a peace sign, big fat smiles.

“But…” she glances around the room and there’s a coffee bar, her favorite drink in this place, a stack of tuna sandwiches, a sheet pinned to the wall that writes “Pin the Deathray on Horde Prime” in bright red paint. “I don’t have a birthday.” 

Adora shrugs. Glimmer pops a cone-shaped party hat on Catra’s head. “So why not today?”

Entrapta pokes her in the back with her hair and points to a tray of tiny desserts spread out on the table behind them. “Wrong Hordak made those! I helped with the science part!”

Wrong Hordak winks and Catra is officially concerned. Science and baking didn’t go together last she checked.

She and Adora look to one another and then they’re laughing. It bubbles up, just like that. No effort, no strain. A moment like this and she discovers that maybe some things can be easy.

//

The sun beats down on them midday. Trash bags filled, paint marks on their skin, a toolkit splayed at their feet. Rebuilding was hard work. It took a lot of time, sweat, effort. Every night Catra fell into bed and went right to sleep. No staring at the ceiling, no glaring at the stream of light through her window. She sleeps out of pure exhaustion of a long day in the sun.

It’s her and Scorpia working side by side on patching up a ruined fence today. An old bot still sits to the side, untouched as moss and weeds sprout over it. 

The villagers express their gratitude. Appreciation is offered in the form of ice cold lemonade, orange creamsicles, and broad smiles. It’d be easier if they knew the truth. 

At the end of these repairs, they shake Catra’s hand emphatically, wide eyes expressing just how much they appreciate what has been done. And it’s not hard, not quite easy but never truly difficult, for Catra to respond, “It was the least I could do.” Some of them get the meaning of those words, others less so. But they always smile. They always accept her apology in the form of fresh paint and sore thumbs from hammering a few too many nails without paying attention. 

“I thought you looked familiar.” The mayor comments, her wide ears flop as her head tilts. “You were a Horde soldier. Almost took out my barn with the battle you and She Ra had a couple years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” she says almost as a reflex. “I want to do my part. To repay my debts.”

Narrowed eyes, dubiousness. Stern eyes are replaced as she glances around, takes in the rebuilt village, which stands fresh and clean and without bots and broken bits for nature to grow around. The stains of the past have been relieved from the earth. “You do good work. I’ll give you that.”

Catra shrugs. “I gotta take what I can get.”

They leave the town behind and on the journey back, Catra lets Scorpia sing. Not that she would admit it to anyone, but somewhere deep under the covering of trees, she even joins in.

//

Old habits die hard. 

There’s a courtyard that’s completely empty save for grass and tufts of wildflowers. It almost asks them to make use of it.

So they do.

Quick feet, feinted blows, and grappling that was so familiar it had the same sense of nostalgia as swinging from the pipes. 

None of it’s in anything but fun. That doesn’t mean Catra won’t still give it her all to win. No She Ra allowed, that was really the only rule. “A magical being able to grow trees in space and eliminate universal demons is not a fair competitor,” Catra comments as the sword in Adora’s hand begins to flicker into a proper shape. 

So instead she sheds her jacket and lunges without hesitation. 

“Cheater!” Catra squeals, dodging out of her advance. 

It’s like that for too long. So long that in the Fright Zone, they would have been reprimanded for “messing around.” That’s how this is intended, though. They fake each other out, wrists caught in hands, feet moving steadily without missing a step. At one point, Catra twists just out of Adora’s reach, first one pinned is the loser, and she spins back to press a kiss to her shocked lips before running in the opposite direction. Her laughter reaches the heavens; it pulls the precious oxygen from her lungs, leaves her breathless. 

In the end, she lets Adora catch her. Lets her wrap fingers around Catra’s delicate wrists and press them to the ground, her body sitting squarely over top, eyebrows raised in a manner of suggestion. The laughter fades, replaced with tension, with longing, with desire and fire and the only sort of want Catra has figured out how to sate. 

“I let you win,” Catra whispers. The sun is just behind Adora’s head. It gives her a mystical glow. 

A glance over her shoulder. “Bullshit,” Adora says back, words breathed right by Catra’s ear. 

Cursing is still so foreign from Adora’s mouth that it causes more laughter, a joke in and of itself. Adora’s tongue darts out, runs along her lips. Catra’s eyes are wide, the sun is almost too bright, but she ignores the burning, takes it as it is. “This is a bad hold anyway. I could break right out of it.”

There’s a look, an understanding. “I know,” Adora says softly. She pushes onto her knees that straddle Catra’s body, leans forward until their foreheads are pressed together. “I know.”

Somethings are so hard, so much force, a fight against herself who has only ever known to battle everyone around her. It’s hard to be open, to face her faults and accept her sins. It’s almost impossible, acknowledging the hurt she’s caused while grappling with what has been done to her, reconciling the two. It’s hard, explaining how she feels, not relying on habits, and keeping herself open instead of folding herself away.

It’s hard to bring down towers, fortresses, empires. 

Adora kisses her. The sun shines so brilliantly Catra shuts her eyes against it. Her back is pressed to the dirt, her hair littered with dandelion fuzz. Lips meet, and Catra does not break her hands free, does not fight a single thing. 

She does the hard work. The demolition was more painful than she knew. But she doesn’t stop.

Adora kisses her, and another brick comes loose, is pulled free. 

When Catra’s fully enveloped in kisses, in love, she shifts her weight and flips Adora over, catches her in surprise. 

And she does the same now. Her grasp is loose, her hold an option. But she kisses her. Sun on her back, chest so full it just might collapse in on itself. Catra kisses Adora; she loves her, trusts her. No bars, no cages. The fear no longer holds a death grip. 

“I love you,” she says, and the words never get old or grow tired. They are just as new, just as intentioned. 

Adora’s chest fills, a slow smile takes over her face. That’s the moment to freeze, the one to hold onto forever. That’s her letting those words sink within her and hold her close, accepting each one for what it means. “I love you, too.”

That's the beauty of forever, though. Catra doesn’t have to hold onto anything. She gets to keep it at her side without any fight at all.

They lay there, side by side, kissing and smiling. Some things were easy, after all. She falls forward into Adora, finds her there to catch her. Perhaps a lot of things could be easy. 

A hand on her cheek, a hum building in her throat, a happy sigh from beside her.

They kiss in an open field with sweat drying to their foreheads and laughter spilling from their lips and find love exactly where it’s supposed to be. 

There’s no space for walls, no room for fists, no need for fears. 

The fight was over, but the rest of their lives had just begun.


End file.
